Guests in holiday neckties or black suede pumps pushed their way past a massive, glowing Christmas tree and through the gilded lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. They gripped their printed place cards tighter than a traveler holding a passport in a customs line. They were embarking on a journey far greater than the simple crossing of a fancy hotel lobby — they were traveling though time.

In celebration of the hotel’s 90th birthday, officials at Mark Hopkins invited a close-knit collection of employees, clients and ultra-frequent overnight guests to Dining Through the Decades, a dinner event celebrating each of the famed hotel’s nine decades of service. Naturally, the party was held on Dec. 4, the very day the Mark Hopkins Hotel opened its doors in 1926.

“Many of the guests here tonight have stayed with us 75, 100 times,” said General Manager Maarten Drenth. “These are friends of the hotel. They’re not guests.”

The dramatic formal invitation prompted me to assume that we’d all be seated in a big ballroom, subject to long speeches and hotel chicken. Instead, the Mark Hopkins Hotel’s birthday party was a purposefully intimate event for a lively group in a private dining space.

There was no brash lighting, no clanging of hotel trays. Guests dined in the deep brown Nob Hill Club, located on the lobby floor where hotel visitors take their breakfast. Sophisticated dinner tables seated couples or groups of 10. Huge, dense white floral arrangements graced just about everything, and atop each place setting sat a multipage menu detailing all nine courses.

“We’ve done a tremendous amount of research on the culinary side,” Drenth said.

His colleague Peter Koehler, regional director of operations for the Intercontinental Hotel Group and general manager of the Intercontinental Hotel downtown, chimed in: “There are really only three hotels — the Fairmont, us and the Palace — that went through the history of San Francisco.”

That historical connection to San Francisco is what makes the Mark Hopkins’ birthday so special to those who love the hotel. In a city known for its scarcity of longtime natives, the Mark Hopkins remains a timeless touchstone for many.

“The faster the time runs, the more people want to go back to something where you have some history,” said Koehler. “I think it’s important, and it’s important for San Francisco.”

Cocktail hour kicked off an homage to the Roaring Twenties, complete with the Foggy Martini, made from actual Bay Area fog. Each meticulous course of the dinner celebrated a subsequent decade. Local band the Klipptones paired each themed course with appropriate music. The singers even changed outfits to match each era.

Osso buco represented the Great Depression of the 1930s, while a medley of fall vegetables was served as a 1940s wartime dish. Chef Michael Wang offered a loose interpretation of a 1950s TV dinner, with his Mark Hopkins version involving something called “lobster fumes.”

By the 2000s, people had started dancing to the Klipptones’ version of “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. Rug-cutters left their plates of post-millennium farm-to-table beets to create impromptu dance floors. One determined woman went from table to table trying to get us all to clap in unison.

However, Drenth and Koehler did not dance. In beautiful tailored suits and 90th birthday lapel pins, the two European-born head honchos overseeing the show carefully worked the room. They patted the appropriate backs and kissed the appropriate cheeks. Awkward moments were swept aside by servers in white gloves.

The two general managers had managed to gracefully bear the weight of the history they were trying so sincerely to represent, and they did so in a way that harked back to an era of service I can recall only from film.

The night wound to an end as I jabbed a fork into a ball of white chocolate dusted with gold. Inside was modern-day molecular-gastronomy-inspired “apple snow.”

Koehler quickly grabbed the band’s vintage microphone and invited the event’s entire staff to take a triumphant lap through the dining room. The “family” of Mark Hopkins Hotel loyalists instinctively raised their hands and high-fived the neatly uniformed servers, chefs and sommeliers who’d taken us on their culinary time machine.

Beth Spotswood is a San Francisco native who grew up in Marin County and returned to San Francisco after college in the East. She spent four years as a backstage dresser for “Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon” before signing on as a website producer for KPIX.

Spotswood’s work has been featured on KPIX, SFist, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7 Magazine, Porchlight Storytelling Series, LitQuake, Muni Diaries and the Bold Italic. She was the 2011 Reader’s Choice for 7x7 Magazine’s Hot 20 Under 40 and completed classes at Second City Training Center in Chicago. A Mission District resident for 15 years, Beth lives with her husband and a cat named Pompey.